Humbled, and many thank-yous

Immensely grateful, humbled, encouraged........

Just a few words to describe the events of the past week. Since we last wrote, the outpouring of love and encouragement has amazed us. How kind of the Lord to provide us with such affirmation above and beyond what we asked! Thank you for your kind words. 

Some events.....
Jarrod had his ordination council on February 24th. The room was filled with men and women of ugliest ties, I mean, there's not even a competition. Pics to come when we get unpacked and can find them again :)

great faith: former and current pastors, friends, family. Thank you to all who were able to make it and to those who prayed for him. On a white board near the end of the table were some very daunting questions. I asked Jarrod later if he was worried about any of them; he confessed to not recognizing at least two names! Luckily, those never made it to the discussion table :)  Many words of encouragement and charges were given to Jarrod and we were blessed by a great time of prayer for our family. As a token, the Chets staff wanted to make sure Jarrod was entirely prepared for ministry... equiped with the world's

After the council, we had the blessing of being presented and commissioned by Chet's Creek Church. How humbling! We thoroughly enjoyed getting to celebrate this time with our church family and long time friends who were able to come join. Perhaps the best moment of that day was going to Jarrod's parent's lifegroup. They asked us to come share our story and then prayed for us. I felt like the cowardly lion from "The Wizard of Oz" who finally found his courage! All the fears that circle through my mind regarding life out west were trumped by a sincere and calming peace that this road is exactly where we need to go, I was reassured that He is faithful to carry us. Prayer partners, knowing you are supporting us gives us great joy and courage!

E1 was able to (early) celebrate her 4th birthday! She had a wonderful time bouncing with friends and eating cake. Please continue to pray for her heart; daily she tells us she doesn't want to leave her friends here. We are thankful children are resilient and are trusting the Lord to provide a special friends for her once we arrive in Reno, but it is still so hard to see her brokenhearted. She is such a joy to us and we see a love to people growing in her.



We allowed ourselves to celebrate Sunday, then it was a race to the finish as we packed up everything left in our home and prepared to send it ahead of us. Our last big items sold, praise the Lord!, and the trailer arrived. After 6.5 years and 5 moves, we might finally have this packing thing down. Multitudes of muscle turned out to help Jarrod load the truck (THANK YOU!) and it's now well on it's way to our new home.

Now we are trying to fit in as many meals and times with friends and family as we can before we go. Please lift up these conversations, that they would be encouraging and leaving nothing left unsaid. Continue to pray for our families, that the Lord would give them joy in sending us to do His work in place of the sadness of change and felt loss.

I'll leave you with these verses that have greatly impacted me this week.... Colossians 3:15-17
 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do,whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Beginning of a New Chapter

*Time warp... again. Sorry about that! Getting one on one time with the computer is harder than I thought with three little people! But this is letter is important enough to require a VeggieTales morning*

Dear family and friends,

We pray 2016 has been full of wonderful adventures and seeing the Lord’s hand at work for you so far. It surely has for us! We wanted to send you a letter sharing some of what has been going on and ask for your prayers.

In late January, Jarrod accepted a call to Granite Hills Baptist Church as the associate pastor. As we speak; rather, as I write, we are packing up all we own to move to Reno, Nevada.  If you’re like me, you probably had to read that last line a few times.  The journey God took us on to get to this point has been incredible.  He has graciously shown His ability to carry us through our doubts and fears. As we walked through the interview process, He awakened our hearts for Reno and the people of GHBC. There’s a familiar kindred-heart /family-feel at GHBC and we have a growing love for God’s people there. Reno, however is a spiritually dark place. The national average of people who attend some kind of religious service throughout the week is 40%. The same statistic for Reno is 5% (Gallup poll). We hope to be used by the Lord to help the people in Reno fill their craving for more with the only One who will satisfy. By living a grace-empowered life and pointing others to Jesus, we hope to glorify our Father in heaven. We have seen God at work and He has confirmed over and over that this is our step of faith out of the boat (Matthew 14:28-29). This move gives us the opportunity to see God do what only He can do – give life to those who are dead.  Please pray for us. We are confident He will carry us, but oh how weak the flesh is and how quickly we are tempted to worry!

Some specific requests:

-          Pray for Jarrod’s ordination on February 24^th. We will be presented to and commissioned by Chets Creek Church in Jacksonville, FL on the 28^th.

-          Pray for our physical move out to Reno. We will be shipping all of our stuff and then flying with three small kiddos and a dog. Pray for Eliaya, Elora, Ezra to be comfortable during the flights and for our stuff to get there.

-          Pray for us to get settled quickly and to have a “home base” to help deal with the stress of everything new.

-          Pray for Jarrod and I to continue to be unified. Pray for clear communication and grace with each other as well as with our children.

-          Pray for the E’s, that they stay healthy and adjust quickly to new surroundings. Pray for friends.

-          Pray for our families as we go. We appreciate their support and willingness to serve the Lord with us by sending us out.

-          Pray for Jarrod to step into this new role smoothly. Praise God for the friendship he and Pastor Mark have formed already and pray they collaborate well.

-          Pray for Granite Hills Baptist Church (ghbcreno.org) to be unified in their desire to serve the Lord and the people of Reno.

Thank you for joining us in this adventure! We covet your prayers; we need you to “hold the ropes” as we venture into this spiritually dark place and seek to make much of Jesus. We love you all!

We're Baaacckkk!

Hey!

Perhaps you're thinking, where did we go? Why the long period of silence?

Well, in a short answer, my brain needed a chance to simmer down. We have been in a season of change and reprioritization, and are emerging on the other side for the better!

With that said here are just a few highlights of the last three (almost four) months.....

Jarrod GRADUATED!! 

Praise the Lord! They mentioned this thing called graduation and talked about classes not continuing forever... but to be honest I didn't quite believe them. Isn't it funny how some seasons of life seem to fly by and others drag on for ages? Our family learned so much through seminary, but more on that topic later. As for what's next...... well, Jarrod is actually still finishing a class this summer, so while the pomp and circumstance has already happened, we are still in a similar routine till mid-July. But we are so excited for the change in what I call Jarrod's "brain divisions". School requires less space and leaves more for family, church and just plain old fun! (not sure who enjoyed the bounce house more.... J or the girls). We are praying about the next step and excited to see where God might lead us to serve in ministry. Meanwhile, we are busy loving the opportunities God has given us and will keep plugging away!

princess.... with a lightsaber! 

 E1 is now 3 years old! Who can believe it??? She loves to ride her tricycle, play with her doll house and attack the "bad guy droids" with her cardboard lightsaber (hmmm.... where did she learn this from??). She has kid-neighbors now (oh right, btw we moved! The Lord provided a house for us to live in and we are loving it!) and she wants to play with them all the time. She is an energetic as ever and loves to talk about what she's learning. We've discovered that she has one volume, and even with her best attempts to whisper, she can be heard anywhere in the house :)













E2 is almost a year and a half and we are daily amazed at how quickly she tries and learn new skills. Perhaps at some point we should tell her she's not the same age as E1 :) She is quite the talker and has a soft spot for all babies and dolls. At meal times she makes sure to offer everyone a bib.

              

We revealed the news in a previous post about the Lord growing our family from 4 to 5: can you believe that, in spite of pretty much everyone (myself included) confident we would have another girl... it's a BOY! Little man Reed is due sometime around September 1st. When we first told E1 about having a little brother she looked perplexed at us and said "hmmm..... no, I want a little sister" then walked away!  She has since come around to the idea and is looking forward to teaching him all about Star Wars and how to use a lightsaber, and the lyrics to "Let It Go". Poor boy. But, he will make a great husband someday ;) As a mom of girls and one without any brothers.... any boy-raising advice is welcome! We are getting into the third trimester and I'm feeling good, especially thankful for days when both girls take an afternoon nap at the same time! haha.

Books I'm reading (or at least attempting to slowly and in pieces benefit from): Seeing with New Eyes by David Powlison, just finished Twelve Part Harmony by Pat and Jill Williams (heart-string tugger!), and we've started reading The Secret Garden (childhood fav!!) out loud to the girls. Not sure that E1 understands much of it yet, but it's a habit we want to develop. That little girl can tell when we're within a mile of the library and starts frantically asking "is the libary open??? Is it open???"

Thanks for checking in on us, and I promise to share more updates and funny stories over the next few months. For now, this momma is headed for the couch while the little ones are fast asleep!

Till next time,